You Feel Like Home
by MyWhitelighter
Summary: In which James and Sirius butcher the title of a well-known muggle novel, Lily thinks she's getting engaged and there is an abundance of unfortunately sub-standard noodles. One-shot.


**Random one-shot that popped into my head. To those following my other stories I haven't died, I'm just unfortunately incredibly busy at the moment. Still, read and enjoy (or not) and let me know what you think! :) **

**Title:** You Feel Like Home

**Summary:** In which James and Sirius butcher the title of a well-known muggle novel, Lily thinks she's getting engaged and there is an abundance of incredibly sub-standard noodles.

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Outside the thunder pounded, the rolling rumble of a runaway train, accompanied by the constant thudding of rain beating against the window. A skylight had always seemed like a fun thing to have in the middle of the flat until you realised how much louder the weather sounded on a double-layered sheet of plastic rather than a normal ceiling. When there was no sun to filter through, more than once it seemed as completely void of purpose as the backing singers for the Confundo Brothers, once they'd muted their microphones as they always did because they liked the sound of their own voices too much. As she sat staring out of one of the windows to the dimmed London street outside, darker than it should be at 7pm in the middle of summer because of the blackened clouds hanging overhead and the vision obstruction of condensed moisture from the atmosphere falling in heavy droplets, Lily Evans wondered what she was supposed to be doing.

The sound of the aforementioned wizarding warblers floated in from the wireless in the other room, and she rolled her eyes. "I still can't believe you guys are fans of the Confundo brothers," she called out, brushing some auburn hair from her eyes.

"Why wouldn't we be?" Came the indignant response of Sirius Black, clattering about in the pseudo-kitchen they'd made for themselves. "They're the perfect musicians - suave, versatile, and _confundingly good_. Have you even listened to their latest single?"

"They're heartthrobs for teenage girls. Like... Bobby Sherman."

"Who?"

Lily sighed. "Never mind. Did you actually just quote their catchphrase to me?"

Sirius was saved from replying by the distinct sound of a door opening and keys being thrown unceremoniously into a pot, accompanied by some off-putting warbling echoing the song Lily had just heard on the wireless. "_So I said to my baby, I said, take my wand and take my robe, but you'll never get the wizard outta me_..." James Potter, the ever optimistic other-half of the girl staring out the window walked in, hair soaked and jacket sodden as if he'd just gotten up and walked out of the ocean.

"It's a bit wet," he grinned, dropping the paper bag he was holding into a chair and shrugging his jacket over the back of it.

Lily wrinkled her nose. "Don't come near me," she whined when he started to walk over to her, and he pouted. "Or at least dry up first."

"Lily Evans," he stepped closer still. "Key to my heart, queen of my dreams," he wrapped his arms around her and she squealed in protest, smacking at him but he ignored her. "Lady of the manor -"

"Are you quite done?" Despite herself she was laughing, still trying to push him away.

"Never." Leaning down he dropped a brief kiss on her lips before retracting back and heading for the bathroom. "Towel."

Sirius emerged from the kitchen, and after throwing Lily a brief grin made a grab for the paper bag and scurried away, and she was left to her own devices as she was before. "You two are being awfully cryptic," she let it hang in the air between them. "Why all the secrecy about tonight?" Why did James have to run out in the middle of a storm as was hanging over London that evening just to retrieve some apparently missing ingredients? It wasn't unusual for the pair of them to want to pull Lily to the latest greatest thing, but she'd grown used to Confundo Brothers concerts and flying motorbikes, not hovering in their living room with little else to do for hours at a time except indulge in one of her favourite novels. Muggle, that was to say, not wizard. She was no Daisy Buchanan, but oftentimes she felt like James and Sirius had captured accurately the mystery and enticement, and in some cases romanticism of Jay Gatsby perfectly - she'd wondered if they'd peeked at said novel and acted accordingly on purpose.

"The one thing about Hogwarts," James said as he emerged from the bathroom, wand in hand, and as dry as before he went out. "Is that because of the elves, they never really give you much chance to express your true culinary brilliance." Lily arched an eyebrow at her boyfriend. "So this is your chance to experience our utter genius on top form."

Lily gave him a bemused smile. "You guys have cooked for me before, I'm sure."

"But not like _this_," James insisted. "You have yet to witness what I like to call Noodle Night with James and Sirius."

"I'm already nervous."

"Our noodles are _so _great," Sirius added as he emerged from the kitchen once more. "They're as great as that muggle book you love so much. The Great... Great, um-?"

"Gatsby?"

"The Great Gatsby," James agreed. "They are the Great Noodleby."

Lily shook her head. "You're ridiculous." Not to mention they _had_ taken a look at her book.

James grinned and put an arm around her in response. "I think you'll find I'm actually the love of your life."

Deciding that was besides the point, she allowed him to linger a bit before Sirius summoned him into the kitchen and she sighed in exasperation. They were now eight months into adult life, James had just turned nineteen as she had three months earlier, and she found herself making the most of the smaller causes of happiness in life as they edged further away from school and deeper into the world that had previously only been newspaper articles and vague reports that hid most behind ink on pieces of parchment. The sense of detachment they'd always been allowed to feel while locked securely inside the castle walls was fading, and while there was nothing she could do about that she could stand as firm as she could and resolve to enjoy what should, in theory, be the greatest years of her life.

The rain hammered relentlessly on the skylight above the sitting room.

Despite what the boys had been trying to suggest, the night seemed... ordinary. They chatted and laughed about idle things, ate mediocre at best noodles and watched Sirius get steadily drunker over the course of the evening, gauging just how far gone he was by how in-tune his warbled verses of the Confundo Brothers sounded; as he slowly dipped into dangerous cat yowling territory, James shoved him towards his room to sleep it off.

"I don't mean to be rude," Lily said as Sirius' door shut and the pair of them were left alone at the table. "But I have to admit this was a little anticlimactic. I mean it was lovely and all and I've enjoyed it, but it seems a little average. Remus and Peter aren't even here."

James said nothing, and drummed his fingers on the table. His thoughts were elsewhere, away from the crooning from the wireless and the musings of his girlfriend. "Do you remember that time when I was drunk," he instead said, and she cocked her head in attention. "And asked you to marry me?"

Lily's heart stopped, but somehow managed to choke out a reply. "Yes?"

"Just, out of interest... what would you say if I asked you sober?"

It was a marriage proposal. It felt like a marriage proposal. The sodding Confundo Brothers were on the radio, Sirius was snoring off what would eventually lead to a killer hangover in the morning, and she'd just eaten chicken noodles and rice. Her breath smelt of chicken noodles and she was going to be asked to marry someone.

Oh, Merlin.

"I don't know," she answered tightly, willing her voice to stay on one level. "Are you asking?"

"No," James said quickly, a little too quickly, and her heart plummeted. "Well, maybe. Depends on your answer." He folded his arms like a petulant child, seemingly unbothered by Lily's mind racing at the gravity of the situation - he just didn't seem to _get_ it.

She bit her lip. "Well, I guess I'd say yes. If you asked." This was it. This was _it_.

James nodded slowly, taking the information in. "Cool."

Cool.

_Cool_?

That wasn't quite what she was expecting. She waited for an excruciating half a minute, but nothing else was forthcoming - no grand romantic gesture, no ring. She cleared her throat but he didn't seem to notice, finishing up the leftover rice on his plate. It was like trying to squeeze water from a stone.

Suddenly, she felt very tired. Emotionally drained after only a few short minutes of heightened heart rate, and she felt cheated that he clearly wasn't going to say anything more. "It's getting late," she announced, pushing back from the table. "I'm going home."

"Can I walk you?"

She didn't answer and headed back to the door where she'd first left her coat when she arrived. "I'd rather you didn't."

"Did you say something?" James called as she heard the familiar clatter of plates hitting the sink. "Was that a yes?"

The door clicking shut behind her was his response.

It was still storming outside, it hadn't let up all evening - but even as she pulled up her hood and wrapped her coat tighter around her to try and protect her from the rain's onslaught, she found it oddly refreshing. Who did he think he was, anyway? He couldn't just put that on the table as if getting married was no big deal at all to him, not when he knew how much it meant to her. Especially knowing how worked up she'd gotten the first time, only to realise five minutes later that he was snoring into his pillow rather than listening to her heartfelt response and realising he was actually piss drunk and in no fit state to make life changing decisions.

Then again, maybe it was her fault for getting so psyched up about it in the first place. They were only nineteen after all, only _just_ nineteen in James' case, should she really be thinking about marriage? It was only fourteen months of a relationship, after all - was she preempting things a little? He might not be ready. Still, she thought, as her mood worsened when she accidentally stepped in a puddle along the street, that didn't give him the right to throw the word around.

It was just the climate of the world they were living in affecting her decisions. Everyone was getting hitched as quickly as they could in case they never got the chance to; when danger lurked around every corner you had no idea when people and opportunities were going to get stolen from you, and that mentality was affecting her comprehension of her situation with James. They didn't have to rush. They shouldn't _have_ to rush.

Well, he was still a prat.

Before she even turned the corner into the next street, she felt someone grab her arm and instinctively pulled her wand out to fend them off before realising it was James.

"Don't do that!" She hissed. "Don't sneak up on someone like that, not at night!" The kind of people roaming around didn't exactly make London a safe place to be. Then she gasped. "Where's your coat?"

James stood there in the t-shirt he'd been eating in looking lost, gripping to her arm tightly as water dripped down the side of his face. "I just - just now," he tried to get the words out. "I needed to tell you something."

"It couldn't wait until tomorrow?" Lily asked, feeling the small amount of anger she'd been entertaining ebb away slowly. He looked helpless and frustrated, a driving force with nowhere to drive it, determination without a purpose, and suddenly he became the strong-willed young man she'd fallen in love with all over again.

"You weren't over with us tonight because we were going to make it extraordinary," he seemed to have trouble trying to express what he meant. "You were - you were there because it was _ordinary_. Because it was something mundane and normal that I just really wanted you to be a part of."

She cracked a small smile. "The Great Noodleby?"

"Noodle Night with James and Sirius," he confirmed, whipping his glasses off and trying to clean the water off on his already sodden shirt. She thought about suggesting they take it inside, but there was a sense of urgency to his movements. "I... I want to ask you Lily, and Merlin knows I've tried - I want to spend the rest of my life annoying the hell out of you, there'll never be anyone else I'd rather ask."

"But?" Because she sensed there was one.

"But," he sighed. "It's not the right time. It's not _right_ - I don't want to get hitched just because we've got the darkness on our heels and making us feel like we have to."

There it was, he had been feeling it too. The idea that they were being rushed, that if they didn't do things now something would open up and swallow them whole and they'd never get the chance to. The oncoming storm, one that had nothing to do with rolling thunder and thudding rain, and they were trapped in the eye of it - just waiting for it to start moving and throw them straight back into the thick of it.

She pushed some of his flattened, wet hair from his forehead. "You don't have to ask me, James, things are fine as they are. We're fine as we are."

"You don't believe that," he muttered so quietly she almost didn't hear him over the splashing of the rain. As much as she wished she could, she couldn't dispute him. "I didn't mean to ask you that earlier and my response wasn't exactly my finest moment." Lily laughed, even in the middle of his self-deprecation; because 'cool' was _never_ a good response to that. "I think I just wanted to check you still wanted to, even if I hadn't asked. That I'm not losing you because I want to wait."

And, all of a sudden, she felt very silly for making a big deal out of it. "You're not losing me, James, I _love_ you. You can put a ring on it or feed it noodles for the rest of your life for all I care, I promise."

He seemed a little relieved, but the rain could well be blurring her perception of him at the moment. "I wanted you here tonight because you feel like home already, Lily. I don't know how to ask you to marry me yet, but I love you and I want to share all the stupid little moments I could possibly have with you - because, damn it, you smell like the rest of my life and you make damn good coffee in the morning and that has to count for something."

In response Lily slipped her arms around his neck and pulled him down to meet her, a moment of stillness in the middle of a raging storm. The darkness was behind them and all around them, trapped in every raindrop as much as it was lurking around every corner - there was no escape from it. They couldn't deny it's existence, but they could deny it the victory it had been hoping for.

And somewhere, as the heavens opened and a sliver of moonlight filtered through a previously redundant plastic skylight, they decided that maybe it did have a purpose after all.

_Fin._

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**Reviews are like the prospect of a new Confundo Brothers album to our favourite dynamic duo,**

**~MyWhitelighter**


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